Municipal Corporation of Kolkata

Kolkata is a beautiful city, situated on the eastern banks of River Hooghly. It is the capital city of West Bengal. Kolkata is popularly known as the City of Joy and is also the cultural capital of India.

The Municipal Corporation of Kolkata was founded in the year 1876. Under the municipality, Kolkata has been divided into 141 wards. These 141 administrative wards have been further grouped into fifteen boroughs. Each ward has its own councilor. KMC or Kolkata Municipal Corporation (as popularly known) is responsible for providing administration and civic infrastructure to the city. The total area administered by the civic infrastructure body is 185 sq. km. The present mayor is Shri. Sovan Chatterjee.

Have a look at the Election and working procedure of KMC:

As mentioned earlier, each of the 141 wards has their own councilor. They elect their own councilor through general election proceedings. As discussed earlier, there are 15 boroughs. Each of these boroughs features a committee comprising of the entire team of elected councilors from every ward. KMC, through the help of borough committees, offers the best civic services. It helps in maintenance and development of government aided educational institutes, hospitals, & municipal markets. It also takes active participation in every urban planning and development projects. Development and maintenance of roads, construction of flyovers, and offering local amenities to citizens of Kolkata and surrounding suburbs are some of the services of KMC.

KMC is also responsible for planning & development of Kolkata Metropolitan Area.

A detailed list of services offered by Kolkata Municipal Corporation is listed below:

Water purification & supply

Sewage treatment & disposal

Garbage disposal & street cleanliness

Solid waste management

Building & maintenance of streets, roads, & flyovers

Street lighting

Maintenance of green areas, parks & open spaces

Cemeteries & Crematoriums

Registering and providing certificates of birth & death

Conservation & maintenance of heritage sites

Disease control that also includes immunization

Public municipality schools

Projects undertaken by KMC:

CBP

MPLAD / BEUP

KEIP

Have a look at these projects in brief:

CBP or Capacity Building Program is a multi agency based project with an estimated budget of 370 million USD. The main purpose of this project is to transform Municipal Corporation of Kolkata into one such organization that can excel services of city administration & governance. CBP also focuses strongly on providing equitable & sustainable urban services in different parts of the city, while providing special attention to the backward and financially challenged classes.

KEIP or Kolkata Environmental Improvement Project is an initiative to prevent environment degradation and reduction of pollution in the city. It emphasize strongly on the sewerage and drainage facilities in the city as well as at the suburbs. Necessary steps are taken for improvement for health and sanitation. Providing basic amenities to slums, keeping the area clean and green, and planting more trees are some of the basic initiatives under this project.

MPLAD / BEUP are mainly local area development schemes. These are followed under local wards and communities. MPLAD stands for MP Local Area Development and BEUP stands for Bidhayak Elaka Unnayan Prakalpa.